Summary

Why Take a Course in Geomorphology?
Human travelers from Tatshenshini Man, the 500 year old Alaska Native recovered from the Tatshenshini Glacier to Juneauites turning onto the UAS campus after passing Auke Lake, have utilized landforms as guides to get over passes to the next watershed, to follow river valleys to commercial trading centers, to cross deserts by using dune orientation or to navigate oriented tundra snow sasstrugi, and to locate oases or hunting sites. Mariners have found their coastal port cities by recognizing prominent headlands and bays from the sea. Ancient Hawaiians have left their footprints in lava flows as they crossed newly cooling landscapes while fleeing adversaries. The "Hunt for Osama bin Laden" has at times utilized the knowledge of cave geomorphologists to identify his possible hideouts in Afghanistan. Military campaigns have relied on landscape knowledge to surprise and overwhelm the enemy. The Jet Propulsion Lab rovers still ! operating on Mars, (Spirit and Opportunity), are remotely controlled from Pasadena, California by planetary geomorphologists, geologist, rocket scientists and engineers.

Seventy five percent of our Earth is covered with liquid water. Solar energy drives the active hydrosphere on our "planet ocean" that allows for continuous resurfacing and landscape development in response to climate change through time. The Earth's geothermal energy drives vertical and horizontal crustal changes, renewing eroded landforms through tectonic uplift and creating depositional areas through subsidence. The timescales or process rates controlling landscape formation are inversely proportional to the size of the landform in question. Mountains are deformed over timescales of 1 to 30 million years. Glaciers and ice sheets wax and wane over time periods of tens, to hundreds, to thousands, to tens of thousands of years. Fault scarps are created by earthquakes, submarine landslides, terrestrial avalanches and mudflows. They can generate deadly tsunamis and are created in seconds to minutes.

The Earth's geoid or equipotential gravity surface is equal to mean sea level and defines the ultimate base level for our planet's geomorphic processes. In this class we will also explore how landscapes have developed on other planetary bodies such as our moon, Mars, Venus, and Europa where internal planetary energy may be negligible and no liquid water exists on the surface.

Humans are now a geomorphic force on this planet. We are directly causing an increase in the rate and extent of landscape resurfacing by our activities of land disturbance through agriculture, mining, road building, paving of urban areas, and logging. Our fossil fuel burning is changing the climate, diminishing surface ice and generating landscape and ecological responses as Earth's albedo changes in polar regions, as plant communities change their geographic distribution, as increased weathering and stream erosion redistributes topsoils, and sea level rises to drown low-lying coastal areas. The discipline of geomorphology will provide you with the tools to quantitatively understand these processes and the changes they create in order to live wisely with the realities of flowing water under the force of gravity on our dynamic planetary surface.

Course Goals:

Recognize the links between landforms, the climate, and tectonic processes globally and compare these with Alaskan examples.

Interpret aerial photographs, satellite images and maps

Recognize landscape features seen on local fieldtrips and link with the to landscapes processes that formed them

Collect your own datasets using GPS and utilize GIS software and satellite imagery to interpret the change in mass balance in local glaciers

Create a GEOWALL set of images to illustrate an important geomorphic process/landform and present this work to your class.

How course activities and course structure help students achieve these goals:

Skills Goals

UAS Competencies Incorporated into this Course http://www.uas.alaska.edu/provost/assessment/competencies.htm
Upper Division, Baccalaureate in Science degree, caliber skills in the following areas will be taught and assessed in this course.

Communication: Students will lead 2 discussion groups and give a class presentation about their individual research projects.

Quantitative skills: Quantitative Geomorphology tools will be developed in weekly labs and through student geomorphology projects which will require weekly data collection and analysis.

Information Literacy: Students will locate pertinent information in scientific literature using GEOREF and other EGAN Library databases. Students will locate pertinent satellite imagery, aerial photographs, maps, and data on the World Wide Web.

Computer Usage: Students will use ARCGIS software, satellite imagery software (ERDAS IMAGINE), geology software (ROCKWARE), and be able to work with numerical datasets in MS Office programs. We will also be using GEOWALL to view 3-D landscapes

Professional Behavior: Students will be expected to be responsible in their class and lab attendance. Each will complete and turn in assignments punctually and treat their colleagues with respect. Students will demonstrate professional ethics in decision making and honesty in exam-taking.

How course activities and course structure help students achieve these goals:

Weekly class presentations and discussions, field trips, lab exercises, homework assignments, and class mini and semester end presentations on geomorphic topics of interest to you will provide the course structure to attain goals and develop skills. You will be assessed on all homework and lab assignments, as well as by a mid-term, and your class presentations (mini seminars and final GEOWALL project).

Provenance: Sean Fox, Carleton CollegeReuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

Provenance: GSAReuse: If you wish to use this item outside this site in ways that exceed fair use (see http://fairuse.stanford.edu/) you must seek permission from its creator.

GSA supports On the Cutting Edge

The mission of The Geological Society of America is to advance geoscience research and discovery, service to society, stewardship of Earth, and the geosciences profession. We support geoscience education at every level. Join us at http://www.geosociety.org/

Provenance: NAGTReuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

Value this site? Help us ensure its future.

The On the Cutting Edge website and workshop program are supported by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT). Join today and your membership will help ensure that this site can continue to serve geoscience educators. Join NAGT today

Provenance: NAGTReuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

Your NAGT membership helps make this site
possible. Thank you!

The On the Cutting Edge website and workshop program are supported by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT). Your membership is helping to ensure that this site can continue to serve geoscience educators.